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Disease killed Medford 4-year-old Photo by Drew Fleming Coni and Scott Landwehr's son Jess, in painting, died in 1997 of a meningococcal infection. He was 4. By JONEL ALECCIA More than two years after Jess Landwehr's swift and silent death, the parents of the Medford 4-year-old wonder whether they could have beaten the bacteria that killed him. "It happened so rapidly," said Coni Landwehr, 41. "I think, what if I had not listened to the doctor and brought him to the hospital anyway?" "We did exactly what the doctor said," recalls Scott Landwehr, 48. "We gave him Tylenol. We put him to bed." But two hours after he was tucked into his bed, less than a day after he first felt sick at preschool, the boy who loved cool trucks and Winnie the Pooh on TV was dead, a victim of meningicoccal disease. Jess Landwehr died Nov. 12, 1997. Since then, the bacterial infection has claimed one other person in Southern Oregon, a 43-year-old Grant Pass truck driver in January 1998. It strikes with no warning and has no cure. Jackson County averages about three cases a year, public health officials said. One case has been reported so far in 2000; three were reported in 1999. Those numbers are low, the Landwehrs know. The disease is rare. But it appears to be on the rise in Oregon, and the Oregon strain appears to resist antibiotics. The Landwehrs agreed to share their story in hopes that other parents will learn of the disease they knew nothing about. "Education is the key," Coni Landwehr said. "There's a lot of families that don't know about this. I live near a grammar school and every day I see those kids and I think, `Why mine?"' Jess Landwehr was a rambunctious preschooler who inherited his father's mechanical inclinations. He loved to take things apart and put them together, recalls Barbara Sonday, a family advocate at his West Medford Head Start preschool. Jess waved goodbye to his mom and boarded the Head Start bus the morning of Nov. 12. By 10:30 a.m. he wasn't feeling well, and Sonday called Scott Landwehr from work to pick Jess up. The mother of three older children, Coni Landwehr thought her youngest was recovering from a cold or coming down with the flu. Still, when he didn't improve and his fever rose, she called the pediatrician. Should she bring him to the hospital? The doctor said no. Coni Landwehr nursed a feverish Jess all evening, finally tucking him in bed with her and Scott at midnight. At 2 a.m., Jess seemed more relaxed. Maybe the Tylenol was working, she thought. So she put him in his own bed across the room. But by 6 a.m. when Coni rose to check, Jess wasn't in his bed. He was on the floor, his skin covered with purple-black blotches. "You cannot imagine how ugly those spots were," Coni Landwehr recalls. Jess was dead. Meningococcal infection, the county coroner ruled. Perhaps Jess was exposed to the common bacteria through a cold two weeks earlier. The disease is contagious. Parents of the 33 other children in the Head Start preschool panicked. A round of preventative antibiotics for staff and students followed, then discussions with a counselor. The death was handled so sensitively that the boy's grandparents, Donald and Patricia Landwehr of Bend, donated $2,000 to the center. Fueled by grief and a desire to create a memorial to the boy, Sonday decided to augment the donation. She started writing grants, seeking funds to create a public meeting room and playroom in Jess' honor. She raised nearly $90,000 for construction of the space at 1531 S. Peach St. "It had a grave impact on me personally," Sonday said. "I had a 4-year-old son in the same class." Today, an oil painting of a smiling Jess Landwehr hangs in the community room named in his honor. It was finished last November, nearly two years to the day that the boy fell ill. His parents love the room and remain attached to the staff at the school their son enjoyed. But Scott Landwehr's eyes grow grim as he recounts the family's short, futile battle with the bacteria. "You never stop second-guessing yourself," he said. "It never stops." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA